


Sparks Filled With Hope

by josywbu



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Iron Dad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sharing Headphones, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Uncle Ben - Freeform, WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED, at least mentions of him, headphones, hot chocolate and musics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 01:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16672588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josywbu/pseuds/josywbu
Summary: When Peter's has a rough day he just needs the reminder that he's not really alone.





	Sparks Filled With Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was: Sharing Headphones - “Sharing headphones could be something related to angst if you wanted that!!! Like either Peter or Tony gets really nervous or starts panicking because of something, so the other one plays a song that always calms them down on the headphones?? Whatever you do with the prompt, I know it's going to be something absolutely incredible ahhh I'm looking forward to it!!” (@underoosstark)  
> Song is [Flares by The Script](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7jaXI6oXpQ) which I hold very dearly to my heart <3

 “Dammit, kid! Watch where you’re going, would you?”

He didn’t even flinch when the old man waltzed past him, shoving his shoulder against Peter’s in the process in a way that would have been painful had it been a normal person. And had it been a person who wasn’t already hurting all over.

He had gone to bed with a headache yesterday and he had hoped it would get better overnight but it hadn’t. On top of the headache he had woken up feeling nauseous and his senses that were usually dialed up to eleven where ogling the fifteen mark.

Stopping on a red light, he moved his head to let his gaze wander over the people around him in a daze before he let it drop back down.

There were so many people, too many details and impressions raining down on him and his brain was too slow to make sense of them all. As if the world was HD and his processor not big enough to play it so it kept buffering and reloading and eventually the signal would break off, leaving him with a blank screen.

When his legs started moving again he tried to be aware enough to not run into any more people. Touch was painful today. No matter how light and gentle. May’s hands brushing over his arm at breakfast had been a hell fire he had smiled through and Ned’s handshake had gone on for an eternity. An eternity spent in purgatory.

The worst thing, though, were the looks. The pity and concern in their eyes when he greeted them, as if he would fall apart any second, burst into a million pieces they were just waiting to pick up. He hated how fragile they made him feel and he hated how fragile he was, how not okay and broken. What right did he have to be pitied? What right did he have to be pitied by May of all people?

He was the reason they were both grieving in the first place.

His stomach coiled and he swallowed the heart burn back down, gagging at both the taste and the burning sensation the acid left in his throat.

The images wouldn’t stop coming. They were following him, taunting him, blaming him. They were writing _bloody murder_ wherever he looked and whenever he did, he felt the blood drip from his hands. Warm and innocent.

There were also the noises in his head that mixed with the sounds around him.

The shot, the screaming and shuffling and hurrying footsteps. There were the whispers, the whispers of a dead man. He didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to _be_.

What he had realized this morning when May had woken him up with a tentative smile and a longer-than-usual- hug was that he couldn’t cry. His eyes stayed dry no matter how much the pain spiked and it made everything so much worse. The pain wouldn’t come out. It sat somewhere in his central nervous system, studying his inner workings to see where it could cause the most agony.

Sometimes his limb were on fire, sometimes he was suffocating because his lungs refused to work. He was alternating between feeling dizzy, too hot, too cold and going numb. Like he was on a carousel and with every turn his entire being would change. Except for the grief – that stayed the same. The axis everything else was pivoting around.

A little girl ran into his legs and made him stumble, the quick apology she flung at him in a hurry making him look up. She was already gone but when his eyes adapted to the bright sun, he could make out the big bold letters in front of him and for the first time today he felt something that wasn’t sorrow. Something that might be a flicker of hope.

Still he stopped in his tracks, unsure of what to do, frozen to the spot until his phone beeped with a message. (Hadn’t he put it on silent earlier?)

_Come on up, kid. I’ve got hot chocolate and blankets._

For the first time today he felt tears prick at his eyes, sitting on the verge of spilling over but not quite there yet. It made the flicker of hope grow into a timidly bickering flame.

Peter took a deep breath, letting the relief that was the cool air in his lungs fill his entire being before he exhaled. If there was a flame he would do his damned best to nurture it so it wouldn’t die. He could do that.

The first wobbly step felt like a Herculean task and it took him half a minute to move one foot in front of the other. The second was palpably less shaky and with the third one he felt almost back in control of his body, enough so that he didn’t have to consciously think about the next five anymore. Just like that he was standing in front of the huge double doors, meeting his reflection’s eyes in the glass.

Bleary eyes looked back at him, making the lack of a smile on his face seem even more distinctive. When he looked down, his hands were still tinted red and he could’ve sworn that there was a black hole where his stomach should be but – looking up again – the tiny glimmer of hope in his eyes was still there.

So he pulled open the door and let his body follow the directions F.R.I.D.A.Y. was giving him from the ceiling, shutting his brain down for the time being.

When he reached the living room, the lights were dimmed and his favorite blanket was sitting on the couch as if it belonged there. On the coffee table stood a steaming mug that smelled of chocolate. It wasn’t just any mug either. It was the biggest one they had and it was the exact same one that May and him had at home.

He looked up to see his mentor standing a little off to the side as if he wasn’t sure whether or not to come closer and he felt his eyes burn as tears pricked at them again. Hesitantly he took the first step, not trusting his voice to make it through a sentence, just hoping that Tony would understand like he always seemed to.

Not a second after he had moved, he was tugged into a full bodied hug and rough calloused hands were carding through his hair as if they had never done anything else in their lives.

“I’m- I’m sorry,” he whispered and every word that left his mouth felt a little closer to the breakdown that he was anticipating, that he was craving. He just wanted to get it all out.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Pete.” Tony’s voice was so close to his ear that his warm breath reverberated through his body, spreading like a wildfire. A fire of warmth and home and love, a stark contrast to the cold breeze of grief that was still gripping at his heart.

Peter let himself be dragged towards the couch and when he felt himself being tugged into the warm dark green blanket, he closed his eyes and just tried to stay in the moment.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Tony whispered, situating him so his head was resting on the billionaire’s shoulder and he could curl his body around his. “You can let go now. You can cry, it’s okay, I’m here. You’re not alone –”

_I just want you to know… that you’re never alone in this._

The teenager staggered under the weight of the words and the way they became more intertwined until he couldn’t discern them anymore.

“May called me earlier. She was so worried that you’d – that you’d do something. And – I know how hard it is.”

_I know that this.. everything.. is hard sometimes_

“You’re so strong, bud, so incredibly strong,” his mentor’s voice wavered and with it, Peter felt the very first tear slip past his closed eyelids. “I’m so proud of you. I’m so grateful I’m allowed to call you my kid.”

_We love you so much and we’re proud of you. You’re our boy, right?_

The tears kept coming, running down his cheeks and his chin until they got lost in the soft fabric of the blanket. The salt tasted foreign but welcome on his lip. It tasted like relief and every sob that shook his body felt like his own personal remedy.

The grief was still there, it had never left but he could wash it out for now, could clean himself off the pain that accompanied it, could focus on how his uncle’s fingers used to rub over his shoulder blades to get him to relax and how he had smiled at Peter whenever he had explained something to him. He concentrated on the way his voice used to be filled with so much love, how gentle it had always been.

Through it all, Tony was there. Tony was letting him cling, he wasn’t letting go and – as guilty as that made him feel – Peter was grateful for it. There was just one –

“My- my phone,” he got out between hiccups, making a move to untangle himself from the blanket before a steady hand stopped his frantic movements and handed him the phone, together with a pair of headphones.

“You want me to give you some spac – “

“No!” His wide eyes found his mentor’s. _Please don’t leave._ “I wanna – I wanna show you something. If – If that’s okay?”

He didn’t wait for an answer but instead pushed one of the earbuds into the older man’s hand and started tapping through his phone. Good thing, he knew the keystrokes by heart because he could barely see through the veil of tears that were still spilling from his eyes as if they were never going to stop. When he had found it he waited for Tony to put the bud into his ear before taking a deep breath and pressing down on the touch screen. Without conscious thought he curled into the billionaire’s side once more.

_“Hey Pete. I know you’re not with Ned and Mister Delmar told me you haven’t been at his place for a few weeks now and I – I don’t know where else to look anymore, buddy. Please come home. Your aunt and I are really worried about you. I know that this… everything… it’s hard sometimes but I just want you to know that you’re never alone in this. You can always talk to us. We love you so much and we’re proud of you. You’re our boy, right? Just… come home, Pete, please. I’m –“_

Peter flinched when the gun shot rang through the headphones and buried his head deeper into Tony’s chest when the shuffling and shouting started until –

_Beep. You have reached the last saved message. To delete the message –_

“I couldn’t – I couldn’t listen to it again after that night,” he confessed in a hoarse whisper, “I couldn’t – couldn’t hear his voice and not – not have him here. He was out there looking for me and – oh god –“

His voice broke and so did his spirit.

“It’s my fault. All – all my fault,” he cried, “And now- and now he’s – he’s _gone_. He’ll never come back again. And I’m – why am I still alive? Why did he have to –? I can’t do it, Mister Stark. It doesn’t get – it _never gets easier_. Everyone always said it would get easier but it _doesn’t_. I just want –“

_I want my Uncle Ben back. I want my parents and May and Ben and you. Why can’t I have all of you? Why does everyone always have to leave me?_

He didn’t say that, though, because he might still be a kid but he had seen enough of the world to know that pleading and begging and even praying wouldn’t get him anywhere. It would only hurt more to put it out there and be told so, too. Instead he let himself be held.

Tony’s hands were back in his hair, rubbing soothing circles into his scalp. He was talking, too, but Peter couldn’t make out the words – only the comfort they provided.

Peter didn’t know how the other man had caught his phone and how he had managed to type while holding him but suddenly another noise sounded through the ear bud still in his right ear, a soothing melody canceling out some of the horror and guilt and grief that had settled into his soul. The soft sound of the piano filled him with calm like only this song could. He nearly cried again, out of gratitude, but Tony simply pulled him closer and they listened together until the song was over, both with an earbud in their ear, heads resting together and eyes closed.

By the time the last piano notes of _Flares_ faded away, Peter’s breathing had evened out and although he wasn’t really okay and might not be for a long time, he knew that he didn’t have to do this alone. He had people in his corner who would guide him even through the darkest nights until the sun would rise again and for now that was enough. It had to be enough.

 

 _But did you see the flares in the sky?_  
_Were you blinded by the light?_  
 _Did you feel the smoke in your eyes?_  
 _Did you, did you?_  
 _Did you see the sparks filled with hope?_  
 _You are not alone_  
 _'Cause someone's out there, sending out flares_  
 _Someone's out there, sending out flares_

 


End file.
